The present application is based on the Japanese priority application No. 2002-187559 filed on Jun. 27, 2002, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a program, a computer-readable recording medium, an information processing system, and a method for causing a computer to protect against illegal copying of a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as a computer-readable recording medium used for an information processing apparatus such as a PC (Personal Computer), an optical recording medium, which has a large capacity and is portable, has been widely used. As a typical optical recording medium, there are a CD-R (Compact Disc Recordable) and a DVD-R (Digital Versatile Disc Recordable) as write-once-read-many recording media, and a CD-RW (Compact Disc ReWritable), a DVD-RW (Digital Versatile Disc ReWritable), and DVD+RW (DVD+ReWritable) as a rewritable recording media. Also, a CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read-Only Memory) and a DVD-ROM (Digital Versatile Disc Read-Only Memory) have been widely used as a read only recording media.
One type of these optical recording media is called a hybrid recording medium and is known as a recording medium in that a part of the recording medium is a recorded area storing an application program and other areas are non-recorded (recordable) area and can be used as a work area to record information concerning the application (Japanese Patent No. 3153837 (Japanese Laid-Open Application No. 06-349248)).
A recording/reproducing apparatus (a CD-R or CD-RW drive, a DVD-R, DVD-RAM, or DVD-RW drive, or the like) for recording and reproducing information of the optical recording medium is connected to an information processing apparatus such as the PC. When the hybrid recording medium is loaded to the recording/reproducing apparatus, the application software stored in the recorded area of the hybrid recording medium is started. Then, the application software is executed on the information processing apparatus. The application software uses the non-recorded area on the hybrid recording medium to store and maintain data. Generally, the hybrid recording medium is shipped in a state in which the application program is recorded in the recorded area and cannot be rewritable, and the non-recorded area is writable and rewritable.
The hybrid recording medium is manufactured such that the non-recorded area remains as the CD-RW by using the CD-RW, and that a structure of the CD-RW is applied to the recorded area and pits are formed in grooves.
However, conventionally, the hybrid recording medium has allowed a user to copy the data recorded by the application software to another recording medium by using write software that is commercially available.